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Increased budgets for packs?
jackjack_k
Posts: 8,601 Member
Maybe I'm just not looking at this right, but Laundry Stuff literally had 4 unique Gameplay items (if we include Washers and Dryers as the same item) and probably has the biggest system we've seen in a Stuff Pack to date by quite a bit.
And now Jungle Adventure has come out, with a world that's 3x as big as the what we got with Vampires and much bigger than Outdoor Retreat, and there's more skills, gameplay items and overall animations than what we've seen for a GP so far by quite a significant chunk (Vampires seemed to be the most Animation heavy so far and I'd say this eclipses it by a fair amount).
I'm thinking maybe with the console release confirmed, they've been able to up the budget for the packs because they know the audience has increased?
What do you guys think?
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I can see this happening. Heck even with Laundry day has an dedicated new system just for it. If they will release another gamepack and Stuff Pack this year that feels so big, then yep we are right lol. But in all seriousness this reminded me of what Grant had Said. The release of the Cats and Dogs Expansion was just the beginning of the second wave of The Sims 4. I can't wait to see their upcoming content.
Tho, if they increased budgets for all the pack types, would it be awesome for EA to had two expansion pack team? Mmm. Maybe if the Sims Team can keep the quality that we had today then EA might do it. I hope.
http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/924539/features-that-needs-depth-and-ways-to-improve
Maybe they just finally took everyones complaints that a lot of packs were disappointing and not fully fleshed out and decided to give us better quality packs.
I think it might also have been a case that it wasn't so much the complaints, but more that TS4 might just be a more expensive game to develop? The animations and world tools are more complicated this time around, which may mean they were given the same budget but they actually need more to work on it?
Idk, I don't really see it being based on complaints knowing how EA barely do anything, especially when it's usually a small minority that don't buy packs they complain about.
Could be a first though! haha
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Cats and Dogs is the best ep and pack so far. I love it so much I can't wait to see it come to the consoles as well.
Exactly what I was thinking during the stream. If Jungle Adventure is so good that it's almost an EP IMO, I wonder if the EP team will up their game as well. Since we're all expecting Seasons next, I hope it'll surprise us in a good way.
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No catering for 32bit machines now. 64bit is the minimum spec. for this. I foresee a lot of new PCs and Macs being bought.
Most times I log on now (uk) there are about 60,000 Simmers on line whereas last year it was 30,000.
I'm happy that the team is stepping up their game (no pun intended.
However, the game should have never been 32-bit in the first place. By making it a requirement, after the fact, it's going to create headaches for certain players. I feel bad for those who bought the game, expecting one thing, and now, they're basically being told that they'll have to get off of the bus because the ride will be continuing without them. Hopefully, a good number of players will be able to buy another ticket, so to speak, and to continue the journey.
It's clear now that making it 64 bit only they're able to say goodbye to ALOT of limitations that were holding them back.
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Absolutely.
I believe that sticking to the 32-bit system is what ultimately killed TS3. There was so much awesome content on a system that wasn't capable of accessing the memory in order to run it all.
That's why starting TS4 off at 32-bit was such a mistake. The powers that be created a game with a certain expectation and now, some players are about to get punted. I'm happy for those of us who already have 64-bit systems, but for the rest, the new move kind of bites.
Statistically yes, and personally yes I would agree (after all I did pre-order and found enjoyment in the pets), BUT and there is always a but, its release saw many game functions break/bugs return, and the EP itself had a hefty share of bugs that should have been playtested and fixed beforehand, though of course I didn't expect every part of that EP to be fully functioning either. I still prefer GT over CD though.
If you notice, the budget for each pack seems to increase each year with packs getting slightly bigger than the last ones and having better quality and more long-lasting and day to day systems being added.
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I know. Laundry Day had some beautiful textures but those washers and dryers were terrible.
I have no idea why they have such a weird issue with the textures on Appliances and Electronics. They’re pretty good with everything else, but the Computers, Ovens etc are all pretty awful.
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I don't know, personally this new vacation pack seems to be of similar quality to the last two gps released, I haven't seen anything that seems to put it far above the rest of them. If dine out was less buggy it seems like it would also be up there with Vampires/parenthood and potentially JA so I just think the gps are as strong as usual.
Laundry could very well have way more, I don't have any sp so I can't really tell, I feel like it was similar to bowling in terms of new stuff (or at least I get the sense and new skill/ & venue is roughly the same as extra new animations and several moodlets)
I think as the game has gone on things have become easier to make and the different pack teams are more aware with what kinds of things they are able to do and cover.
For instance for gps outdoor retreat was relatively limited especially compared to the scope of JA now (that much I think we can tell from the trailers already.) However at the point OR came out gps were a new thing and the studio still needed to figure out exactly how well they would sell and what level of content was needed to make them different from sp of ep.
JA also has an advantage because the coding for how vacations and rental properties work was already written for OR, that means the gp team could put more into other things, like coding an extra skill for instance.
JA also was able to use pre-existing code from CL for the vendors at the cantina, again allowing them to work more on other things, a new type of collectible perhaps.
So yeah I think the budget is similar to what it was before, the teams just have more systems to build on and play with now so it is easier and cheaper to make a pack.
I don’t think they have a bigger budget, I think they are just getting better at reusing what they have without making it super obvious that it’s a revision. Now that isn’t a bad thing in this case, because it clearly allowed them to use the development budget on other areas of the pack.
I think they did borrow a few devs from each team to help work on toddlers; I seem to recall Sarah mentioned it in her blog about the toddler development process. When you consider how much stuff we got (for free!) along with the toddlers it was practically an SP worth of content (furniture, skill items, CASsets, etc.) plus the work of reprogramming existing objects to work for toddlers (like the dollhouses and toybox toys).
With the toddler project completed and launched, that may have freed up some budget money that could be spread out between the other teams. I think the current staff of devs also have a good knowledge of the potentials and limitations of the game engine; you can look at the difference between Outdoor Retreat and the Jungle Pack just to tell the difference. I wonder if it would be possible to go back and modify OR to add some more features?
It acutally makes sense if they have a system in place to adapt it for new packs -- that way they have more time and money to develop actual new content. With Jungle Pack, they can reuse the rental system developed for OR in the housing system for the Jungle Adventure, so they could devote time to developing the various traps and such to enable access to the ruins. The food cart and selling tables are adapted from CL so they don't have to establish a new system. I mean, if you've got something in place, why re-invent the wheel?
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